Monday, July 27, 2009

On Wednesday afternoon, I got a voicemail about an interview. I went to that interview on Thursday at 3pm. I was on time but it started late, which gave me time to bond with one of the guys that works there. By 3:30pm, I was hired.

By 6pm, I had gone home, changed from interview clothes to crap, had a quick snack and bused back downtown to start my first shift. I'm officially the new dishwasher/minor food prep guy at Patty Boland's Irish Pub and Carvery in the market. Huzzah! Full time nights! Money! And likely the chance to be promoted fairly quickly. I was hired Thursday and I've already heard it mentioned twice.

I asked to be directed toward someone who would be in charge of me for the night, and I was pointed at Curtis.

Here I am with Curtis and some girl name Tia or something, in April 2007. I met Curtis in March of that year because he was dating my roommate Krista's friend Nyssa. I thought he was pretty cool, and wanted to stay friends with him. Naturally, they broke up soon after, and this picture was probably on the last night I ever saw him. UNTIL NOW. [I didn't even know his last name, so Facebook was of no help].

So of course, we saw each other and were like HEY! and my mind instantly went to *yay! I'll have a friend at work!*

Minutes later, I found out that Curtis would be working his last shift 3 days later. Because that's how my life works. But now I've got him on Facebook.

On Friday, I had to go to Old Navy to quit without notice, which I totally hated doing. I LOVED working there, even though it was only for a few weeks. I loved the staff there. Thankfully, I've got the best Old Navy kids on Facebook already as well. None of my favourites were working when I went in to quit, which was good, since I probably would have cried. Seriously. But with that said, I like the new job, and I feel financially stable for the first time in months, and I'm happy, and the people are nice there too. And the free meals help!

Now, I will leave you with this sort of picture of a random restaurant kitchen that I took somewhere in the market during last week's photo walk.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

I think 1998 was the year of the weird face, based on this photo from my first year on the Renfrew Lions Club. I'm back left, 2nd guy.

It was the year of the massive ice storm right in my own backyard. [see: Ice Storm '98]

My cousin Kennedy was born with about 19 pounds of hair.

I was squeezed into the middle of this curling picture. Pretty sure this is in Petawawa. Lindsay could confirm this I'm sure. Our sweatshirts totally kick their non-sweatshirt asses.

Our summer vacation to Toronto included a stop at the Hockey Hall of Fame [see: replica of the Montreal Canadiens dressing room from the Forum]. We also went to Wonderland with my aunt and uncle. We stayed at a nice hotel, and the fire alarm went off at 3am for a long time, on and off. Not cool.

We saw the Canadian geese by the waterfront, of course.

We also went to Niagara Falls. We were accompanied by stripes, and the worst face ever made in Southern Ontario. This trip also included Niagara On The Lake and an afternoon watching massive freighters go through the locks of the Welland Canal. Way more impressive than Ottawa's locks. [Sorry, Ottawa... yours are cool too!]

I have oh so many pictures of the geography of the Niagara area. This is the nicest.

This day was torture. We had just returned from two weeks on vacation, and I had to play in an all day baseball tournament. 3 games. We were 3rd place.

To make things worse, I also had a soccer tournament that day. Also 3 games. That's right, I somehow managed to play 3 soccer games AND 3 softball games in one day. And the locations were about 25 minutes apart. So much uniform changing and eating in the car. Our soccer team was 1st place. I also once had a hockey tournament and curling bonspiel on the same day. Having to get dressed in hockey equipment in a car sucks.

Here's a picture of the elders of mom's family. Grandma, great aunt Dorothy, great aunt Catherine, her husband Ed, and Sister Clare, my rockin' nun great aunt who has a library named after her.

We went to Chicago for an extremely lavish wedding of a relative I'd never heard of before. Cousin Tom, and his bride Robyn. This picture is of my sister, dad, cousin Tommy, mom, uncle Jeff, cousin Timmy and his son Timmy. Missing from the photo is Tommy's dad, Tommy. We were put up in this MASSIVE house [you can't tell] in Dundee that they just happened to have lying around for us.

For those playing along at home, that was Timmy x2, Tommy x2.

Grade 6. Back row, left side, grey shirt. Rebecca is the girl that looks like a boy with a tie in front of me. Elyse is 4 over from her.

At Christmas, dad made sure the turkey was cooked. This picture shouldn't even exist.

Aunt Sheila whipped out the eyeballs for a gift she clearly hated HAHA.

Alison and I hung out with our cousins Jenny and Cheryl. We were clearly starting to get tired, as this was one of our Roesler family Christmas Eves, which used to last until about 4am. With a family that big, just opening all the presents [one person at a time, youngest to oldest] took hours. This year, mom got the flu and had to leave around midnight. Dad, Alison and I got home around 4:30am. Mom was sick and dying on the couch, and we decided to have Christmas morning then instead of going to bed for 2 or 3 hours and waking up. Sorry mom.

A lovely picture of my second cousin Mary and her mother Dorothy. 5 years after this picture, they both passes away, within 3 weeks of each other, in what was a very funeral-intensive year for our family. Very sad. I guess that's what happens when you have and know a LOT of relatives.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

For a lovely slide show of the full set of photos from the day, CLICK HERE. I promise you wont be disappointed.

On top of the social and photography aspects, there is a contest. One winning photo will be chosen from each city, and then ultimately a global winner. I am having trouble narrowing it down, since I'm only allowed to submit two photos, so I need your help!

After checking out the images below, please vote for your favourite in the poll at the top of the sidebar. [You have until the end of Thursday]. Also, leave your comments in the comments section. Don't be afraid to praise or destroy a picture! ... Thanks, and enjoy!

1. River View Confederation Building and Supreme Court of Canada along the Ottawa River.

2. Parliament Centre Block and the Parliamentary Library through a fence.

3. Blue Rain day by the Rideau Canal.

4. Crank They've been using these things to open and closed the locks for more than 100 years.

5. Drink Up Thanks to Darryl for holding the button so the water could flow.

The Heaven's Gate Cult kicked their own bucket, robots reached Mars, Leo let go of Kate, Harry Potter was born, Mother Theresa died, and the world met two evils: Hanson and Pokemon. Hop in your time machine and join me in 1997.

Rusty Blades, round 2. I'm 3rd back left. Rebecca is front right end. Neon items all kept in the corners.

Here I am, curling at some bonspiel. I don't remember where. I do remember I was on a team with Casey, Kathryn and some random girl we picked up named Sam. She was weird. I don't know where that club was, but it seems dingy.

Alison and her shorts'n'boots prom date, Wes. He's got a pretty awesome tattoo of a frog jumping up his leg. His car broke down outside our house. Classy.

My mom used to babysit kids for a living [for 22 years!] which allowed me the joys of having my mom at home and not having to go to some loser babysitter's house LOL. This is Josh and Mistralle [sp?] [they're French]. RIDICULOUS FACT: Ten years later, Darryl teaches Josh in high school in Ottawa. WHAT!?

Thursday, July 16, 2009

On Tuesday night, Darryl and I headed on down to Silvercity to see the brand new, totally great Harry Potter movie. We pre-purchased the tickets online, and assumed there would be waiting in line outside, since that's the norm for an event where there are many theatres airing the same movie at a special time. We got there at 11:30pm and were told to walk right in. 45 minutes early, and there were almost no seats left and we had to sit near the front. It makes no sense to me that since everyone had pre-purchased tickets, they saw the need to get into the theatre so early. Freaks.

So, the movie started 15 minutes late. It was quite enjoyable, and I am trying to find a download so I can see it again ASAP [fail so far] but it meant we were 4 minutes late for the last bus of the night. Our choices were to spend the very little money we had on a taxi [instant no], walk a long distance home [possible] or wait until the first bus of the morning. Apparently that bus was only 90 minutes away, so we chose that option, along with a few other people.

It floors me that they cut service for 90 minutes. Just make it 24 damn hours! We killed the time by walking around. It also gave me a weak premise to take grainy nighttime camera phone pictures for a blog post!

Our stroll brought us to my place of employment. What fun!

After our tour of the darkened Gloucester shopping area, we headed back to Blair Station, where we totally spent some time riding the elevator up and down.

I took a picture of Darryl.

But something was missing.

We decided to find out where the long tunnel lead to.

Apparently it goes over the Queensway. It wasn't busy, but we waved at some passing cars. Good times.

We walked all the way to the end, for that true Blair Station experience.

The 95 came at 4:30am, and we got to Darryl's place at 5, after more waiting at Hurdman for the 97. Much sleeping followed.